Please accept my hearty congratulations on your recent election to office as President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN. Your route to the presidency was indeed tortuous and I sincerely believe that you occupy that seat today, by the grace of God, of course, but also because of the courage you brought into the struggle. For, struggle, indeed it was. What with all the intrigues, accusations and counter-accusations of all kinds - an unfortunate replay, almost, of the do-or-die battle we are familiar with on the Nigerian political scene.
But thanks to God, all of that is behind now. Your acceptance speech, in which you extended your hand of fellowship to all and sundry within the Christian fold, urged all to put the elections behind and work together for a stronger Church, and called on all aggrieved persons to forgive one another, has been widely acclaimed as statesmanlike and, helped to reduce tension.
We note most especially your tribute to your predecessor and opponent in the election: “Let me also thank the outgoing president, His Grace Archbishop John Onaiyekan for his leadership of CAN over the last three years. It has been an honour for me to serve under your leadership and I know I speak on behalf of not only myself but on behalf of the whole of this General Assembly when I say we appreciate your dedication and sacrifice to the faith during your just concluded tenure as president of CAN.”
Most noteworthy, from the point of view of this writer, are some declarations contained in that speech. You said: "We continue to face monumental levels of corruption in our society, which translates into poor education for our children, deteriorating infrastructure, poor supply of electric power and a pervasive sense of hopelessness and helplessness among a host of other challenges.”
In many ways, you continued, “the challenges, that we as a nation are confronted with crystallise and find their mirror image in the challenges the body of Christ is confronted with in the north of the country. We must and shall continue to draw attention to the perennial religious crises in Northern Nigeria until we break the vicious cycle of violence and victimisation. There must be no doubt in your minds, my brethren, that if we are bold and courageous and prepared to speak truth to our times and to ourselves, we shall be the arrowhead of changes that Nigeria and Nigerians call out for. We must be as wise as serpents, so that the voice of the church is listened to and heard with clarity and without equivocation."
You couldn’t have articulated the state of the nation and the Church more accurately and more succinctly. But as many observers of the Nigerian space can tell, we’ve never been short of accurate diagnosis of our challenges. We sometimes even hit bull’s eye with our prescriptions, only to flunk it at the application stage, somehow. The umbrella body of Nigerian Christians which you now lead, unfortunately, hasn’t been an exception in this respect, particularly in the years since Olubunmi Cardinal Okogie’s leadership.
It follows therefore clear that your handling of the few issues identified in your acceptance speech, and others adjunct to them, will define your presidency. The courage, creativity and godly wisdom that you bring to bear upon the decision-making process, the decisions, actions and omissions will determine success or failure of your tenure.
Since that speech, you have, expectedly been inundated with congratulatory messages from groups and notable citizens, each seeking to put one thing on the other on your agenda. This has been varied. But, possibly the one that encapsulates them all may well be that from former military Head of State and presidential aspirant, Muhammadu Buhari. Besides joining others in presenting the church and inter-faith unity course, the general placed the Elections 2011 on the menu.
According to reports, the general has enjoined the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) under your leadership to insist on conducting credible elections in 2011. Specifically, he wants CAN to educate its followers to elect credible leaders at all levels and to ensure that their votes count.
His words: “ …I hope that in your new position, your wealth of experience will be used to promote peace and understanding not only between churches but more importantly between Christians and Muslims in the country. In Nigeria we expect no less from you, especially the demand for free and fair election; Nigerians of all faiths recall with gratitude the great contributions made by the Catholic Secretariat in exposing the sham elections of 2003 and 2007. I hope you will use your good office to insist that the authorities concerned conduct credible elections, as well as educating your followers to elect credible leaders at all levels, and to ensure that their votes count.”
From the foregoing it is clear that you have raised the bar and public expectations are high. This is why it’s so urgent that you put a plan of action in place. This you seem to have done, in a sense, through what might be called a Three-Point-Plus Agenda, as reflected in your response to enquiries by a newspaper, the Nigerian Compass, which recently carried a piece by Segun Otokiti headlined, “What to Expect from Oritsejafor’s CAN Presidency.”
Incidentally, in these day and age, you would think that the place to search for that kind of information would be the website of the association, but what you get when you try www.canonline.org is this: “This website has been suspended for non-payment of annual renewal fees. For more info email (withheld). This is disgraceful, to say the least, and it speaks to the contempt with which the immediate past leaders of CAN treat interface with the public. I do hope that you would not allow this to continue for another day.
But I digress. Otokiti gave the “three major areas…apart from other things” …where you hope to do your best as, “uniting the body much more”; “the religious crisis that continues in the North” and; what you called being “light and salt of the earth”. We shall try to examine the thoughts you outlined in these three areas in the next part of this letter. Thanks for your time, Mr President.
No comments:
Post a Comment